Defending individual liberty against the tyranny of government.
Truth, justice and the American way: liberty without compromise.

Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life,liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place. - Frédéric Bastiat

WHEN people one day look back at the remarkable implosion of the Hillary Clinton campaign, they may notice that it both began and ended in the long dark shadow of Iraq.

It's not just that her candidacy's central premise — the priceless value of "experience" — was fatally poisoned from the start by her still ill-explained vote to authorize the fiasco. Senator Clinton then compounded that 2002 misjudgment by pursuing a 2008 campaign strategy that uncannily mimicked the disastrous Bush Iraq war plan. After promising a cakewalk to the nomination — "It will be me," Mrs. Clinton told Katie Couric in November — she was routed by an insurgency.

If Rich actually knew something about politics, he'd know that Hillary's troubles are s all because of her negative baggage over the last 16 years, not because she's a woman. Despite the claims of a misogynistic media and unfairly critical media, her gender is irrelevant. The American people really do look past that. Some Americans maybe still cannot put their fingers on it, but many Americans know something about her makes them distrust and dislike her. Rich himself provides the most obvious. Ironically, his opening paragraphs are a contradiction to his stated thesis, as so well document Hillary's arrogance. It's true that the Clintons reorganized and restored the Democratic Party, which in their eyes made it their party to run as they see fit. That's why Obama and John Edwards' serious candidacies are such an affront to Hillary: she was the anointed one, dammit, and how dare anyone else oppose her when it was her time?

Americans who have paid more attention see Hillary as secretive, from the White House files to the secret HillaryCare meetings, and for those who noticed, the squelching of anything about Bill Clinton's pardon of Marc Rich pardon after his wife so coincidentally contributed to Hillary's campaign. Earlier this month, Clinton Library archivists blocked the release of any papers about pardons that Bubba issued. He may have opposed that GWB's 2001 executive order "broadened former presidents' prerogative to block the release of internal White House records," but Bubba certainly hasn't minded taking advantage of it. And who's naive enough to believe that First Lady "We are the president" Hillary wasn't just aware, but involved in releasing these records? As co-president, they were theirs after all, right?

Even worse, as has been pointed out for months, Hillary has been poorly imitating local regional accents to the point that I forget what her natural "Shrillary" voice sounds like.

And this is how a lot of Hillary's own party views her! Hillary already chained herself to her huge ball of negative qualities, and if Rich paid any attention to debates, op-eds and her opponents' speeches, Iraq simply wasn't an issue. It was never necessary for Obama, Edwards or even Dodd to hammer her on the fact that her own "withdrawal plan" could take years. Hillary may have had tremendous financial backing and existing party loyalty, but it wasn't enough when she found herself competing against someone with tremendous charisma. Rich himself revealed a week after this op-ed that

[Obama's] upbeat notion of a yes-we-can national mobilization for the common good, however saccharine, speaks to the pride and idealism of Americans who are bone-weary of a patriotism defined exclusively by flag lapel pins, the fear of terrorism and the prospect of perpetual war.

As I pointed out previously, Obama's followers are chanting just like Germans several decades ago would shout "Sieg heil!" It's much like a lot of the GOP hoped Fred Thompson would be a "blank slate" for them to imbue with conservative qualities. Obama is that "blank slate" for those Democrats who wanted not so much a fresh face, but an alternative to the Clinton machine. These Democrats turned out to be more "Anybody but Hillary" than Republicans.

The rest of Rich's op-ed does accurately talk about the Clinton campaign's inferiority to the cohesive network behind Obama's campaign, but like his later op-ed where he says McCain is as liberal as Hillary but watch-out-for-McCain's-position-on-Iraq, then what the hell was Rich talking about in the first place?

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"You are not to inquire how your trade may be increased, nor how you are to become a great and powerful people, but how your liberties can be secured; for liberty ought to be the direct end of your government."
- Patrick Henry, 1788